Aristotle’s Three Ways to Persuade

1. Aristotle’s Three Ways to Persuade Logos Ethos Pathos

2. What is persuasion? The goal of persuasion is to change others’ point of view or to move others to take action.

3. What is logos, ethos, and pathos? Logos = Logic Ethos = Ethics, Image Pathos = Emotions (Passion)

4. Logos Logos = argument based on facts, evidence and reason. Look for rhetorical questions – questions asked without the intent of an audience answer

5. Ethos Ethos = The writer or speaker presents him or herself to the audience as credible, trustworthy, honest and ethical. Look for the speaker to break away from the subject and talk about himself. “I am an ethical expert, so believe what I say.”

6. Pathos Pathos = argument based on feelings Using pathos means appealing to readers’ emotions.

7. Symbols for Logos, Ethos and Pathos Logos = Head Ethos = Hand Pathos = Heart

8. Logos

9. Ethos

10. Pathos

11. Logos Example We don’t have single-sex toilets at home, and we don’t need them at the office. Then there’s also the small question of efficiency. I see my male colleagues waiting in line to use the men’s room, when the women’s toilet is unoccupied. Which is precisely why Delta Airlines doesn’t label those two bathrooms at the back of the plane as being solely for men and women. It just wouldn’t fly.

12. Logos Example The University of Chicago just got the 10 single-use restrooms on campus designated gender neutral. It’s time Yale followed suit. And this is not just an academic problem. There are tens of thousands of single-use toilets at workplaces and public spaces throughout the nation that are wrong-headedly designated for a single-sex. All these single-use toilets should stop discriminating. They should be open to all on a first-come, first-lock basis. —Ian Ayres, “Looking Out for No. 2”

13. Ethos Example In the following example, note how Nancy Mairs establishes her credibility and trustworthiness and authority to write about this subject by being honest. Mairs admits she is uncertain about her own motives and shows she understands the discomfort others’ have with this subject.

14. Ethos Example First, the matter of semantics. I am a cripple. I choose this word to name me. I choose from among several possibilities, the most common of which are “handicapped” and “disabled.” I made the choice a number of years ago, without thinking, unaware of my motives for doing so. Even now, I am not sure what those motives are, but I recognize that they are complex and not entirely flattering.

15. Ethos Examples People—crippled or not—wince at the word “cripple,” as they do not at “handicapped” or “disabled.” Perhaps I want them to wince. I want them to see me as a tough customer, one to whom the fates/gods/viruses have not been kind, but who can face the brutal truth of her existence squarely. As a cripple, I swagger. —Nancy Mairs, “On Being a Cripple”

16. Pathos Example In this speech by Winston Churchill, note the use of parallel introductory phrases (repetition of a word or group of words at the beginning of his sentences). Watch for loaded words – words which are emotionally charged and guaranteed to provoke a response This repetition emphasizes the point and expresses passion and emotion.

17. Pathos Example We shall not flag or fail. We shall go on to the end. We shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills. We shall never surrender. —Winston Churchill, speech to the House of Commons, June 4, 1940

18. Pathos, Ethos, Logos